1895.] Alexander E. Caddy —Ax ole a Inscriptions in India. 
157 
Here, over the dome-like tops of an outcrop of granite, has been 
cut a stepped-path which leads to the caves which were at one time an 
important centre of Buddhist devotion. Long granite rocks with domed 
roofs run north-east and south-west. In one of them three chambers 
of some size have been excavated, each with its own door, which is 
recessed considerably into the rock, to allow the perpendicular walls of 
the cave to be a safe distance from the outer contour of the mass. I had 
to bring away moulds of the dedicatory tablets to each of these caves, 
and to make photographs of them. This was soon done. Of the 
caves, the one with the most imposing exterior is least finished inside. 
The work here seems to have been abandoned on the workmen comim>* 
on a fissure of more than usual dimensions, but the other two caves and 
the entrance to the third, and a good part of the Lomas Rishi cave, too 
have their walls and roofs highly polished. The glass-like polish o*iven 
to these surfaces has been the admiration and wonder of ages. 
17. The doorway of the Lomas Rishi cave represents the entrance 
to a handsome hut-chapel, the arch being enriched by a frieze of elephants 
the space surrounding it being filled with an elaborate wainscottino- 
The door has sloping jambs, Egyptian-like. The rock is a quartzose 
gneiss, and where the elephants are carved, a whiter stone makes the 
ornament very effective. 
18. The Sudama cave, called also Nyagrodha* or Banian tree, has a 
perfect chamber terminating in a Chaitya chapel, the whole circular 
dome being carefully made and highly polished. 
19. The third cave in this rock is on its other face. The Kama - 
chopar is a single chamber. It bears a very much worn tablet outside 
on which 1 was able to trace the representation of a fish which does not 
seem to have been observed before. In the doorway, too, there is some 
fine lettering (comparatively modern), and a word or two in the still 
undeciphered shell character. Another cave in this range of hills lies 
east of this group and opens southward. A small vestibule of polished 
gneiss or granite (as it is commonly called) leads to an unfinished 
inner Gliaitya —a very small one. The inscription, being in the polished 
recess, is in excellent preservation except where viciously chiselled out 
20. On either side of this rocky ridge there is a plain which 
would hold a large assembly. To the north-east there is a shallow tank 
beyond which is an extensive field from which the hills rise up a few 
hundred feet, and which is crowned with a Hindu temple of the Siddhes- 
wara linga referred to in a later inscription in the Vapiya cave. 
# “ Nig oh a Khubha ” — Banian tree cave, according to General Cunningham It 
seems that caves were often named after some tree growing near by e. cj. Nyagrodha 
the Banian tree; Pippali, the Pipal tree ; Saptaparna, a septafid tree. 
